1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure for mounting a front end panel that extends in the direction of a vehicle's width at the front end of the vehicle, heat exchangers such as a condenser, which are mounted on the front side of the vehicle in front of the front end panel, and external pipes that connect the heat exchangers and air conditioning devices such as a compressor and an expansion valve, which are mounted on the vehicle behind the front end panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, heat exchangers such as a condenser and a radiator are attached to strong members such as a front end panel (abbreviated to a panel hereinafter) provided at the front end of a vehicle, but the temperature of a refrigerant that flows through a condenser is lower than that of a cooling water that flows through a radiator, therefore, the condenser 200 is mounted on the front side of the vehicle (upstream side of air flow) in front of the radiator (panel), as shown in FIG. 6.
On the other side, air conditioning devices such as a compressor and an expansion valve are mounted on the vehicle behind the panel (downstream side of air flow), therefore, refrigerant pipes (external pipes) 230 to be connected to the condenser are arranged through the panel, as shown in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7. The holes, which are provided in the panel and through which the refrigerant pipes penetrate, are called through-holes 133 hereinafter.
Since connectors (connecting blocks) 233 and 234 that have external dimensions larger than the outer diameters of the refrigerant pipes are connected to the ends of the refrigerant pipes 230 in order to facilitate connection of the refrigerant pipes 230, the sizes of the through-holes 133 need to be large enough for the connectors 233 and 234 to penetrate through, that is, larger than the outer diameters of the refrigerant pipes 230.
Because of this, as shown in FIG. 7, a comparably large gap is formed between the refrigerant pipe 230 and the through-hole 133 (its edge) in a state in which the refrigerant pipe 230 is connected to the air conditioning devices such as a compressor and an expansion valve, therefore, a problem may occur in that hot air heated by devices such as an engine mounted on the vehicle behind the panel moves to the condenser side (the front side of the vehicle in front of the panel) through the gap, resulting in degradation of the cooling ability of the condenser and the radiator.
One of the countermeasures against this problem is to fill the gaps with filling means such as rubber (a grommet) and packing, but this countermeasure will cause the number of the parts that constitute the front end structure and the man-hours required in assembling the front end structure to increase, resulting in rise in the manufacturing costs of the vehicle.